Child language brokers’ representations of parent-child relationships

This paper reports the analysis of qualitative data from a broader study of young people’s representations of conflicting roles in child development. Just over a quarter of the group, bilingual students who spoke a variety of first languages, had had personal experience of child language brokering (CLB). Employing vignette methodology, they were invited to reflect on the implications of an adolescent boy’s language brokering activities for, among other things, his relationships within his family. In this paper we will present brief case studies to illustrate different positions that members of the group adopted in relation to developmental scripts emphasizing independence and interdependence between young people and their parents (Dorner et al. 2008). Through an analysis of individual CLB case studies, we illustrate various ways in which individual young people reported the balancing of the demands of autonomy and connectedness in their analysis of relationships between young people and their parents

Recent research on child language brokering in the United Kingdom

Recent patterns of migration and population change in the UK have led in some places to a need for child language brokering (CLB). Although there is only limited evidence on CLB in the UK, the research that has been published indicates the diversity of the phenomenon and suggests its frequency and significance in the lives of some families. In this paper we review a range of small scale studies from different research centres to illustrate that diversity. The research has highlighted ways in which language brokering often elides into cultural brokering with young children playing a brokering role within as well as outside their families. An important line of enquiry has been research on the CLB process itself, but detailed studies of how children and young people respond to the challenges of translation in different settings remain elusive, as do studies of the impact that the activity has on their interactions with others. A key issue for the children and parents involved is others’ perceptions of and reaction to CLB, including not only the professionals and officials with whom they deal but also their peers at school and elsewhere who are not involved in language brokering. Ultimately CLB is of theoretical interest not only for the light it throws on children’s language learning and acculturation but also for the challenge it presents to traditional notions of child development and family role

Using the vignette methodology as a tool for exploring cultural identity positions : European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Special Interest Group 21: Learning and Teaching in Culturally Diverse Settings: Moving through cultures of learning

In this paper we will examine how the vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. Vignettes are typically short stories about a fictional character or fictional scenario appropriate to a particular study. The story places the behaviour of the character in a concrete context and allows the researcher to explore participants? positions and perspectives on the issues arising from the situation. We argue that within a framework of cultural development theory and the dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2001) identity positions can be explained in relation to the sociocultural context. To do so we report on part of wider study about representations of children who work. In particular this paper will focus on language brokering which involves translating or interpreting on behalf of family members who do not speak the host language. Language brokering requires the child to engage in both the cultural contexts of the host culture and the home culture and as such, the child must negotiate new cultural identities. Those interviewed were young people aged between 15-18 years, some of whom were brokers and others who were not. When looking at the language broker vignette scenario these young people often positioned the parents, teachers and friends of the language broker in the scenario in particular ways. Through notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and the dialogical self theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions

Child language brokering in schools: a discussion of selected findings from a survey of teachers and ex-students

Because the children of immigrants often learn the host language much more quickly than their parents, increasing numbers of children and young people contribute to family life by acting as child language brokers (or interpreters) (CLBs) for their parents. There is well-founded professional resistance to the use of children in the LB role in sensitive or challenging meetings, but for some purposes many immigrant parents and grandparents prefer a language broker from within their own family to an external professional interpreter. In this paper we report selected findings from parallel on-line surveys of teachers in schools where there has been some use of students as CLBs and of young adults who have acted as CLBs while at school. Our aim is to explore what can be learned about the use of CLBs from analyzing the views and experiences of these two groups who bring distinctive and complementary perspectives to the topic

Using the vignette methodology as a tool for exploring cultural identity positions

In this paper we will examine how the vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. Vignettes are typically short stories about a fictional character or fictional scenario appropriate to a particular study. The story places the behaviour of the character in a concrete context and allows the researcher to explore participants? positions and perspectives on the issues arising from the situation. We argue that within a framework of cultural development theory and the dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2001) identity positions can be explained in relation to the sociocultural context. To do so we report on part of wider study about representations of children who work. In particular this paper will focus on language brokering which involves translating or interpreting on behalf of family members who do not speak the host language. Language brokering requires the child to engage in both the cultural contexts of the host culture and the home culture and as such, the child must negotiate new cultural identities. Those interviewed were young people aged between 15-18 years, some of whom were brokers and others who were not. When looking at the language broker vignette scenario these young people often positioned the parents, teachers and friends of the language broker in the scenario in particular ways. Through notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and the dialogical self theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions

Working Children

In this chapter we discuss children’s engagement in work and how normative understandings of childhood as a time for play, formal schooling and socialisation play out in debates about, and experiences of, child workers. Ideas about children’s development, taken up in national and international policy frame debate about working children, distinguishing between work and school, with the view that work is very much at the limits, or margins, of normative childhood. Debates about whether children should work, or not, draw upon particular ideas about childhood, as distinct from adulthood and as a period of vulnerability that requires adult protection, or at least supervision (see Crafter et al. 2009; Burman, 2008). From this perspective child workers are constructed as in need of protection. We discuss how children’s engagement in work is constructed, in particular the distinction made in much of the literature, and in policy and practice, between labour and work, childhood and adulthood, and between the global north and south. The chapter focuses on how dominant constructions of the developing child (drawn largely from the global north) make particular assumptions about the kind of work children should, if at all, be engaging in. The chapter also interrogates the assumption that ‘work’ is paid activity that takes place outside the home through a discussion of children who are young carers to family members. The symbolic, and actual, limits of childhood are played out in public debate and legislation internationally about the role of work, including care work, in children’s lives